


Out of Options

by love2imagine



Series: New Beginnings [2]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Depression, Drunkenness, Hope, Humour, Part 2 of New Beginnings, Thoughts of suicide and attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 05:31:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1457476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/love2imagine/pseuds/love2imagine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place a little more than a year after 'Over and Out'. Part 2 of New Beginnings Series Peter has lost interest in his job and life in general.<br/>Shows that Peter can be adorable and goopy even when drunkenly trying to get out of Elizabeth's way and let her live life fully.<br/>Triggers for depression, suicides and drowning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Options

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own White Collar or any of these lovely people...the story and mistakes are mine.

* * *

 

 

New York could be the bustling, exciting, metropolis full of light and action and excitement. Or it could be smelly and grey and cold and damp and stifling and noisy and crowded.

“ ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’,” Peter quoted out loud, looking out of the window at the grey sky and miserable rain that seemed determined to stay till it had washed all the candy off the Big Apple. _But what good is that if I don’t know how to change my thinking about something so I enjoy it? I’m not._

It occurred to him that he wasn’t enjoying much these days. That thought had recurred in different forms even though he pushed it away resolutely. After all, he was working at White Collar in New York. His choice. Elizabeth had given up the DC job even though he’d begged her not to. She just said she’d prefer to be closer to him and had used her position at the National Gallery to get an extremely good job and salary at the Met. He was sure she’d done it out of pity, or fear that their marriage was in serious trouble.

_Which it had been!_

He had scared himself when he realised how much alcohol he was consuming. When he saw the bills. Diana had done a mini intervention after she’d picked him up after he’d crashed his car…not bad damage and thankfully no-one injured, no-one else involved. She’d never told anyone. Loyal Diana. But boy, was she going to make one scary momma, should Theo ever come home drunk!

He had managed to stop drinking only by not having any booze in the house at all, which again was hard on Elizabeth now that she was home. _If I’d just done a good job and wrapped the car round a pole at a reasonable speed…! She could have gone back to the National Gallery. Diana would have moved up to head White Collar. I’m a fraud! I don’t belong here any more. Not as ASAC, not as a Team Leader, not as a probie._

It was true. He wasn’t doing the job. He saw the looks. He’d given them to other agents himself, once, in his cocky youth. The ‘doesn’t-he know-he’s-washed-up,-washed-out,-why-doesn’t–he-just-retire-and-go-fish-or-something-where-he-won’t-be-in-the-way’ looks.

And if things didn’t change, he wouldn’t be given the chance to retire. His closing rate was mediocre and what there was he could attribute to Diana and his team, all faithfully shielding him, perhaps hoping this long slump was temporary. DC, of course, had shut their doors and windows to him, hell, they’d even stuffed the mail-slot! He’d turned their great offers down, rebelled against their direct orders…and now it seemed obvious that his high closure rate had been due entirely to his team and his CI. His once hopeful career was in tatters. Most agents wouldn’t be seen with him in case it was contagious. Any communications were brief and curt. Some members had transferred out, but his core team was loyal. This was doing nothing to help their careers.

_I’m bored! I’ve started to hate coming in to work._

He tried not to think about Neal, usually, but on days like these that was impossible. He was still at work when everyone else was either home or in the field. He didn’t want to go home and pretend with El. But here, even after substantially more than a year, he kept expecting to look up and see two blue eyes sparkling with joy over a broad, white grin as Neal leaned in with a joke or some confectionary or some lead or a wonderful case to brighten up his day. _How is it that took some criminal to make my life-work as a lawman worth living? Chasing him, catching him, working with him…did those years when he was in prison seem as drab as my days do now_?

No, because Neal was somewhere.

Neal was on earth.

In prison, which Peter hated, so he tried not to think about it. But one day Neal would be out and free – and probably committing crimes once more; prison did little to rehabilitate criminals, and Neal’s life had been crooked for so long there was nothing good to be ‘re’-habilitated back to! And when Neal was out and committing crimes, Peter Burke would be out there, too, chasing him!

Now Neal was gone.

Dead.

No question.

Dead.

The word seemed impossible in relation to the bright, effervescent, ever-youthful, passionate rogue. Which is why he’d searched, on Bureau time and then on his own. Month after month with no leads and no clues of any sort. Now he had come to accept that every bright and lovely, exciting and charming being who had ever lived and would ever live would end the same way. No escape. No hope for escape.

And he had been self-righteous and downright mean to Neal when he’d only been trying to help him, done the only thing that could help him. And now he could never make it up to Neal.

 

From the dawn of the eve of his first birthday after Neal’s disappearance he’d felt as though ants were crawling all over him. He couldn’t sit still. Every movement or sound the whole day and the next made him look up, expecting a Special Delivery. An unsigned birthday card, a cup-cake, a Chagall so good no-one could tell if it was real or fake…it was when he got nothing that he started drinking.

Christmas, and there was still just a tiny bit of hope to resurface and make him a little edgy. They’d had El’s folks over and he couldn’t even pretend much for them, his smiles were super-wide and fake (Neal would have groaned or laughed at him!) and he caught El’s sad expression as he closed up for the night, looked out into the windy cold darkness for minutes too long, imagining a well-dressed, slim figure standing out there, unbothered by the weather, just rocking the look of wool and silk, grinning up at him… and finally closed the door and turned away.

 

When Satchmo passed away he had started crying and couldn’t stop. For two days he cried…Satchmo and Neal had loved each other and played and had loved him and played with him and now he had neither. Elizabeth had told him then that she was leaving DC to come home. When she tentatively asked if they should get another puppy, he’d turned on her and snarled, “Another one could never replace him! There’s no-one else like him!”

It had only occurred to him afterwards that she must have known he wasn’t talking about only Satchmo. He apologised, she’d forgiven him. Two months later she’d brought a small black lab home and he’d looked after the pup, cleaned up after it, taken it to the vet, walked it, trained it, fed it. Faithfully. It grew and was sleek and healthy and happy. It was El’s dog.

He heard a sound and looked up, quickly, expectantly. It was the elevator. The office was so quiet he could hear it…it did that sometimes. Came up or down for no reason. _Spooky thing._

About four months after Neal had…disappeared…he’d seen a fedora at a crime scene. He’d bagged it and had it tested. Diana looked at him pityingly, but it was a valid thing to do! Strangely, it seemed it had never been worn. He often wished he’d asked June, in those early days, for one of Neal’s – Byron’s – hats. But that truly was maudlin and anyway, June and Mozzie had withdrawn from him after the Fed’s had searched her place and then they’d left for Paris – or somewhere far from Paris, knowing Mozzie! He knew June was back, but hadn’t contacted her. What he wanted, she couldn’t give him.

The elevator opened and he looked up. This jumpiness couldn’t be good for him! He probably was suffering from adrenal overload, or adrenal failure, one or the other! Diana came through the doors and saw him. “Hey, Peter! Time to go home, isn’t it?” she called.

“Yeah, guess so. I – I was just sitting here, thinking.”

She strode down the aisle and up the stairs, leaned into his office much as Neal used to do, leaning one shoulder against the jamb. “Yeah. This is just the kind of day I miss that pest Caffrey the most, too!” Diana smiled. “He’d come in with doughnuts or silly string or some way-out theory about fingerprints or evolution that Moz had come up with. Tell me my scarf was gorgeous, smile into my eyes and make me feel less dreary. **_Me!_** What he did to straight girls - !”

“Yeah. I can’t believe I miss him as much as I do, still! I’d have never said I would!” Peter smiled back.

They’d all resisted talking about Neal, probably worried they might set him back to making trips to a John Doe amnesiac found walking on the beach in Florida or some clothing discovered in Oregon….

“How’s Theo?”

“You and El must come round. You haven’t seen him for a few months – he’s growing so fast!”

“Or you must come round for dinner! I’ll ask El, okay?”

“Come on, Boss. No use sitting here communing with ghosts!”

“Yeah. I’ll be right down.”

She didn’t leave, she waited for him. She didn’t trust him. He wasn’t to be trusted. He phoned on his way home and El answered. “Oh, good! I have dinner almost ready, Hon!”

“Love you, Hon!”

“Me, too!”

They ate almost as soon as he got home. El had been back for a while, started dinner, walked the dog. “Remember we’re going up to my folks next weekend,” she said with her mouth full.

“Oh.”

“Honey, you must remember! We arranged it all!”

“Yes, I remember, I just wasn’t thinking about it today,” he said, a shade defensively. He couldn’t ever say, any more **_But there’s this big case! I can’t take time until we crack it!_ ** Because none of them seemed big cases anymore and he didn’t care much about cracking them. Pity not to have that even as an excuse to avoid El’s parents. They’d been a pain before, her father had always looked at him sideways, the low-achieving government-man. Now he was a legitimate mental-health case-study! He knew El lectured her father about it, he’d walked in and heard her on the phone. But her father was worse at being a phony than he was, and the derision and clinical interest were never out of his eyes.

When they got into bed that night he turned to El desperately. Since the awful time of Neal’s loss, their sex life had been a seesaw between almost total disinterest for him, when El going off to DC for the week was a relief, or this terrible, frantic need to fill all his life with his physical responses, his physical release, just to forget.

El moulded herself to his desires as much as possible, and her moulding was so obvious to him. This wasn’t fair to her, it wasn’t love-making, it was more like a drug. There was no humour left. No silly jokes. No romance.

He lay awake afterwards. For the first time, he wondered if suicide was really a bad thing. In certain circumstances. Now, for example. He was just holding El back. He’d stopped drinking, but he wasn’t her lover, he wasn’t her friend, he wasn’t her husband, he wasn’t her provider. She avoided taking him with her to events, and it would have been valuable to her career to have a husband there. She’d always been younger and much more physically attractive and smarter than he, but now it was all exaggerated: he was mentally dull and lost the thread of conversations, he looked old and tired and grey – not his hair, yet, just him. Not an asset, even gussied up in a tux. Perhaps worse in a tux.

_I’m smart enough to pull it off so that it would look like an accident. Or I could just start going after the more aggressive criminals a little more aggressively. Forget my vest. Something._

He slept and dreamed that Neal and Mozzie were planning to knock him off for something, but then he ran from them straight into the arms of Kellar and Rebecca, who laughed at him and wouldn’t kill him even when he begged. 

The week passed. It was foreshadowed by the visit; he dreaded it. But El wanted to go, probably just wanted to get out of the house and meet some ordinary, normal people. _They're her parents!_

He couldn’t really remember the drive up afterwards. They reached her folks’ place on Friday evening, having taken some time off work to start early. He still liked driving, it felt as though something was happening – perhaps he was just running away! He found he was driving slower as they approached their destination.

He did his best to greet Mrs. and Dr. Mitchell politely. He shrugged and said that work was interesting, couldn’t discuss any cases, Diana was well, as was little Theo. That was the end of his conversation. Now the plan was just to listen, look interested.

They had wine. He did not, and Dr Mitchell, watching him all the time like some sort of coiled venomous snake, did not push it at him, for which Peter was thankful. Now he just had to survive the weekend and not look as though he was just surviving the weekend.

_And I called Caffrey a fake and a phony and a liar! What a hypocrite I was!_

He hardly remembered the days. The whole memory was like wearing one of Mrs Mitchell’s Christmas sweaters: ugly and scritchy and uncomfortable. Details really didn’t matter!

They were driving back when El said, “So, what do you think?”

“About what, Hon?” he responded, feeling relief that he’d made it, he hadn’t strangled Dr Mitchell, nor drunk the whole bottle of whiskey sitting on the sideboard, nor walked out, nor screamed and yelled and told them both the truth and broken El’s heart. He sighed. There would be a next time. But hopefully not for a while. Suicide looked a little brighter, if it could happen before next time.

He liked driving. He accelerated a little.

“About the trip they gave us!”

“Oh, yes.” Something about a vacation to Belize that Dr Mitchell’s receptionist or nurse or someone had won, but they couldn’t use it so she’d given it to Dr. Mitchell ( _probably to butter him up, wouldn’t want **him** as a boss, gosh, there are people whose lives are worse than mine!) They gave it to us?_ “Um, I didn’t want to ask, but why did they give it to us?”

“Didn’t you hear my dad? Our anniversary! We can have a second honeymoon! We’ve so seldom gone away, and I have time and I know you do…we can take a whole two weeks!” He turned to her and her face was alight. He smiled at her. She was so precious. He didn’t deserve her!

“That would be wonderful, honey, don’t you think? Just get away?” He infused his voice with as much warmth as possible, but internally wondered if a few coconut palms and miles of white sand would really change anything. He looked back at her and got a powerful feeling that this was her last hurrah – this vacation would be their second honeymoon and perhaps their pre-divorce vacation. His gut was seldom wrong.

 

As the time for their idyllic getaway approached, he felt a great weariness. He couldn’t give her any more, much as he loved her. This was a waste of time. But he couldn’t disappoint her…he had to at least try! _They say, those people who have had near-death experiences, that drowning isn’t that bad a way to die. I don’t believe in that guff, but it’s kind of comforting…and there are sharks there, I think. I could take a boat out, and a six-pack, drink and ‘fall out’ and it would be ruled an accident! The policing there probably isn’t as good, they probably don't have the resources - and how would they tell I’d done it deliberately? I’ll have to act really happy, so they don’t think it’s suicide. Just a few days. I can do that._

So Peter made a final and huge effort. He bought new clothing, a beautiful piece of jewellery for El…a piece of ammolite set into a necklace. It changed colour from red to gold to green, like something magical. He wrapped it in his socks and packed them. El’s whole mood changed. She laughed and made plans for scuba diving and perhaps para-sailing! She had her hair cut and bought a big floppy hat and a new digital camera. He found her watching him, and smiled. “I really need a holiday, Hon! Honestly! I think I’ve just been over-tired.”

She smiled back at him, but her eyes were still wary. The flight took him out of himself a little. They had so seldom flown anywhere together, and flights for work were so often rushed, tense affairs. Well…since all that long time ago when he’d practically sat bouncing on the edge of his seat with expectancy, hoping they were finally going to close with Neal! He smiled, remembering Venice, and saw El was looking at him. She smiled, too, and squeezed his hand. He didn’t tell her he wasn’t thinking about Belize.

They landed and took a car provided to the lovely old-fashioned hotel. They were greeted by the staff, since they were the prize winners! Special treatment! “Anything you need, please ask!” the manager said, sounding sincere.

This was not a usual Americanised ‘resort’ where you couldn’t tell if you were in Hawaii or Mexico, all character sanitised away. This was a restored old mansion, with chalets adjoined to it by winding paths, giving maximum privacy and the illusion of being alone on a desert island until one wended one’s way to the main buildings were there was a classy up-scale restaurant with an extensive menu and wine list. That was attached to a dance floor, and then there were two casual places and a pub, a library with lovely big leather chairs, and a games room. There was a swimming pool and tennis courts out the back. The architecture of the main buildings was original, high ceilings and a wide porch edged with massive columns. The owners had eschewed the gaudy and ubiquitous bougainvillea, and the whole place was hung with grape vines and various jasmines and the scent wafted about the whole building.

Peter and El were established in one of the cottages, filled with flowers and fruit baskets and an ice-bucket with champagne for them, large for a ‘resort chalet’, with a spacious separate bedroom, a magnificent bathroom, generous living area with a small but full kitchen and an open porch, shaded by various flowering trees.

“This is truly gorgeous, Peter! I’m so glad we came!” Elizabeth tipped the porter and went out onto the porch. “Look at the view, Hon! Isn’t that beautiful?” Peter came to her side and put his arms around her. It was a view in a million: the bright blue sea stretching to the horizon, closer, the white sands, framed by feathery coconut palms casting intricate and pleasing shadows. They could hear, for a few seconds, a motor boat somewhere, and then just the whispering of the leaves and the muffled sigh of the gentle surf.

Everything but liquor was paid for, which suited Peter just fine! They ate at the formal restaurant and the food was world-class, El said. They danced. During the day they rented one of the little boats and went exploring, taking a supplied picnic lunch with them. They bathed and lay in hammocks and then danced and ate some more. The weather was perfect and though they talked to a few other tourists, they really enjoyed each other’s company. In the darkness of the night they made love in the comfortable bed, and sometimes in the hammock, which nearly pitched them out more than once, causing them to stifle giggles, hoping no-one would hear. It was as though they were on their first honeymoon.

On the evening of their anniversary, Peter gave El the pendant he’d bought for her and she gave him a new watch. He’d broken his and had been wearing one of his father’s that lost five minutes every day and drove him mad when he forgot to reset it. They danced and she looked like a beautiful girl, a princess in a fairy tale, her eyes alight with love and joy. He drank her in, wanting to remember, when he went ….away. Wanting to remember her like this. They made delicious love. No hammock gymnastics tonight! Tonight must be perfect. Peter fell asleep smiling.

The next night they both expressed their sleepiness, winking at each other, reminding each other without words why they were sleep-deprived! They ate at one of the casual places, lingered a while over coffee and sauntered along the sand, where the waves left lace on El’s pretty toes and the moon rose and turned her into a fairy queen in her white lacy sun dress. They went back and went straight to bed.

“Night, Hon. Tomorrow morning, promise me?”

“Night, Hon. Sweet dreams!” Peter still couldn’t lie to her.

 

The shadows were deep under the grove of coconut palms. The moon was rising behind the nearest building, the beach was glowing silver in it. He could see the white tips of the waves where the moonlight caught them. He leaned against the nearest tree and wondered…did he have to commit suicide? He’d faked the last weeks. Perhaps he could just – what was that awful new-agey positive-thinking line? Fake it till you make it? Perhaps he was getting out of his depression! But then he realised…. _I was just able to do it because I was about to get out of Life. I was planning to leave El so she could have a better future._ _And since she’s the only thing at all worth anything – other than Diana’s friendship, and she’ll definitely be better off without me to be held back by and to be loyal to - I couldn’t just divorce her and give her  freedom…_

Well, he could, but this way he’d be free of the helpless, smothering feeling of failure and depression and she’d have the insurance money. And bad as life was with El, **_without_ ** her - ! He drank some more beer. He tried not to see El, lying on her side, smiling a little. He had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t look, but at the final second he couldn’t resist one, last image of his love, his life…and yet, not enough. Not enough because he wasn’t enough. He’d taken his watch off…her gift to him. He had kept his ring on…too obvious if he took it off. No note. _Suicides almost always leave a note._

_Not me. Accident._

His thinking wasn’t clear now. He had another mouthful of beer.

_Careful._

He hadn’t had a single beer for a long time. Don’t want to mess it up and not get far enough out on the ocean. He could just imagine Dr Mitchell’s face! Not even a successful suicide! He might as well get it over with. The longer he procrastinated, the more likely he’d be discovered, El would come looking for him, something would go wrong. He took another swig and went down to the little boat. He’d got it all set up with one of the boys, who would probably get into trouble tomorrow. But he was FBI, the boy had no qualms about entrusting him with a boat tonight. _Probably wanted to take his beautiful wife over to that little cove for a moonlight tryst, he’d think…._

Peter released the boat and pushed it away from the jetty. He rowed a little way and then started the motor. He pointed the prow away from land and kept a steady course till the few lights he could see to his stern were distant, bobbing in and out of the wave-tops, as remote as he felt. The waves were deeper here, the sea a strange, dark, unknown world filled with who-knew-what horrors.

The lights disappeared altogether. After a while he killed the engine and sat in the quiet, listening to the slop-clop of waves against the boat hull and drinking the beers, one after the other. _Wonder why Dutch courage? Irish courage. German courage. Why Dutch? Strange language. Oh, well. Here I am. All alone. Someone said you always are born alone and die alone. Don’ know. Born with mother, some people die with a bunch of others…whole planes together! Boom! Bit scary at the end, but fast. Hope this is fast._

He finished the beer, dropping the bottles into the ocean. Somehow, since he was committing a much greater sin, littering wasn’t such a big deal. _Perhaps they’ll turn into sea-glass and some young man will make a pretty necklace for his bride and it will bring them love and happiness and they’ll never know…._

He climbed out of the boat, deliberately keeping his shoes on. It was surprisingly hard to leave them on! _It’s true…suicides take their shoes off… find them on a cliff or bridge where they last stood, especially men. Why? ‘Save the shoes, the shoes don’t deserve to die’ is the last thought?_

He paused, holding onto the boat’s side for a moment before pushing her away and swimming in the opposite direction. The sea was nice. Smooth water, warm, soft. The sky overhead was bright with stars by the horizon and dominated by the moon overhead. He knew the land was a long way away. He could swim, but he could never swim that far. Even without the beers. Especially with his clothing weighing him down. It was effectively over. _Dead man floating._ He couldn’t see the boat, wasn’t sure where it was. Couldn’t see the land. Not sure where that was, either.

He bobbed, treading water in his shoes, waiting. Perhaps he should swim, tire himself out faster. He found his thoughts were fuzzy. He swallowed some water and choked a bit. Yeah, this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Peter?”

He blinked salt water out of his eyes. The hand holding his light jacket collar was attached to an arm that led up to a face that seemed to be scowling uncharacteristically in reflected light, eclipsing the almost-full disc of the moon.

Confused, he grabbed the side of the boat and blinked again. The bright moonlight shone whitely on the man’s head.

“That was easy and quick!” he said in mild surprise.

“What was?”

“Dying!

 ...........“Neal! You came for me? You have a halo! But do I still have to be in the water?”

“You really were trying to do it, weren’t you, you idiot!”

“I didn’t see the tunnel and the light or anything! And – I guess suicides do go to hell, unless you’ve pulled off the biggest con of your life – death – r’sistance…um, existen’!”

“You are drunk, that’s your problem! Here, get in the boat!”

“Suicides by drowning get to go to heaven in a boat?”

The man leaned over precariously and grabbed the back of his belt and the neck of his jacket and dragged him bodily into the boat, making it rock and lurch. The boat seemed very hard and uncomfortable.

_Probably hell, then._

The ancient Egyptians believed in a boat…and the Greeks? _Was it the Greeks? Styx? Have to go on the River Styx. If that was Greek, it wasn’t the English alphabet, it was Cyrillic, why didn’t they write it Sticks when they translated it? Very stupid. I shouldn’t care now, but why be so stupid? Just write it Sticks. Sticks. So everyone could read it. It was the same with Gaelic…why was the English version entirely unpronounceable when you could just write it as it sounded if you were changing alphabets? I was right…living was stupid. Couldn’t even pronounce Greek and Gaelic._

Hell…. Suicides went to hell. Mortal sin, or so he’d been told.

Hell, so not very nice.

He felt a vague, lingering sadness. _Well, that’s that then. No going back. No angel or Mary or Jesus or great grandma or someone telling me it isn’t my time, to go back…and would I want to? Hell is going to be pretty miserable, but I’d end up there anyway, lapsed Catholic, and Neal is here with me, now._

If anyone could break out of hell, it was Neal! He started to feel better.

“You in the boat? Not going to fall out?” Neal said.

“No. Don’t pay the ferryman!”

“What?”

“Don’t pay him. I don’t know why he’d take us if we don’t pay him…where does he take us if we **_do_** pay him? I can’t remember. Obviously not paying him gets us somewhere better than paying him, ‘cause that’s the rule, but why do they leave him in charge of the damned ferry, then? And in the movies it isn’t a ferry, it’s a silly little row-boat…. “

..… ** _.uh-oh!”_**

Peter gazed blearily at the other man in the small boat. “Who are you? How do I know you aren’t him? I’ll bet he can look like anyone! I’m not paying you!” Peter suddenly started to sob. “You’re horrid! I thought I had Neal back! And now you’re whatsisname on the Styx. And don’t bother to ask, because I’m not paying you anything!”

“How many beers did you drink, Peter?”

“None of your business! I’ll confess to Saint Peter, and only after I see his credentials, not talking to you. I wonder how the gates and the river get together? Not talking to you!”

“I should just throw him back!” the man by the rudder said, disgustedly.

“Well, you can! I don’t care!”

“Yes, you do. And you don’t want to go across the river, and it’s all Greek mythology that got all messed up by Dante, like Disney stories do – not ours, the Inferno guy – and the ferryman’s name is Charon, and he actually took the dead across the other river, the Acheron, the river of woe.

...........“There were five rivers. Styx is only one, and you have to be properly buried with a coin in your mouth to pay Charon and you’re jabbering away so you don’t have any coins in your mouth. You are a hero and would end up in the Elysian fields, or should if you were an ancient, mythical Greek!

............“How did I get into this ridiculous conversation?”

Peter blinked at the other man. “You’re not Neal. You sound like him, but he’s dark. He knows lots of stuff and likes to show off. But he’s dark.”

“Yeah, about that. Oh, it’s pointless! You are three sheets to the wind and I want to know why you are trying to kill your silly self!”

“Bored. An’ useless. An’ in El’s way. Good reasons. Don’ try and talk me outofit…I know your sort. Politicians. Lawyers. All talk! Ferrymen and taxi-drivers, talk, talk, talk.”

“Where has your boat got to?” the man asked, ignoring him.

“There,” Peter waved vaguely in a totally wrong direction. “Gone.”

The young man stood carefully and shone a light across the water. Just at the edge of the beam’s reach he could make out the little boat, bobbing gently. Peter, meanwhile, was wondering if he should push the man overboard and dive in again, but perhaps this was how it was all supposed to end. He didn’t know which way to go if he was left to himself. The stories said there’d be a tunnel. _Can’t get lost in a tunnel. Stupid, lying stories. Or perhaps the tunnel took you to heaven, and in hell everything was as confusing as earth._

Not good.

_Well, obviously… **hell!**_

But El would be better off. And Diana, and other young guns could get promoted and solve cases and have a chance as he had once. With Neal.

“If you’re Neal, then it’s a miracle. Can’t be Neal, dead and not dark, fair, so therefore you’re a bad ...something. Demon. Bad. Demon’s eyes are black. Your eyes are black. You’re a demon, bad.”

“So you always told me.”

“Could you be a miracle? I should get up and see.” He made some shaky attempt, rocking the little vessel dangerously.

“You’re in no fit state, and I thought you liked your miracles with more smiting. Here’s some smiting for you!” The man pushed him back and punched his shoulder harder than he had expected.

“Ouch,” Peter commented. “Tol’ you, not Neal. Neal doesn’t like violence and – and – something – oh, yeah, not fair. Dark.”

“If you want to speak of miracles, then here’s something I memorized after you insisted on lightning and smiting miracles:

..........“ ** _‘I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life’_ **

...........“That’s God talking, by the way…so which do you choose, Peter? I’m not going to be here every time.”

Peter didn’t recognise the quote, it wasn’t in the Catechism, he was sure, so he didn’t much care. He wondered if Hughes had felt like committing suicide when he’d finally retired. He should have talked to Hughes. He felt a little melancholy that it was too late to talk to Hughes about committing suicide. Meanwhile, his captain had started the engine and headed after his boat. That didn’t seem right to Peter, but just at this moment sleeping seemed a good idea. He curled up in the bottom of the boat. The young man patted his shoulder and said, “Nighty-night, Peter.”

Peter woke when the boat touched the little jetty. He stared blearily around, watched disinterestedly as the young blond man tied this boat and another one to the jetty. He blinked. This was hell? Perhaps he hadn’t drowned properly. Or there was an insanity clause. Or perhaps the stories about hell were all wrong.

_Everything’s a disappointment._

He staggered to his feet and the man was there, setting a shoulder against his side, trying to help him get out of the boat. They managed this, to Peter’s satisfaction. He walked down the jetty a little unsteadily. His shoes slurped and glopped horribly, loose and soaked. He felt a surge of anger and he kicked them off with two wild kicks and sat down hard.

“Ouch! Hell is… ** _hell!”_ **

He struggled up with the demon’s help. “Are you all right on your own?” the demon asked him, dubiously.

“’Course! Left home a long time ’go. Been on my own for a while. Then with El at home. Now I’m on my own, she’s on her own. Better on her own.”

“Can you find your way back to El in the cottage?”

“If I want to!” defiantly.

“And you **do** want to!”

“Um….” He reached the end of the jetty. He was surprised to find his feet sinking into grass. He looked down. Shoes…his shoes were somewhere. In the boat, that’s where. No. He’d just had them.… Then he looked back at the man who was backing away into the shadows. “I’m not going back. I’m going to hell. Can’t go back. Better’n her own. On her own.”

“Go to bed!” hissed the voice from the darkness.

Peter stood and thought for a while, wriggling his socked toes in the grass. “No,” he said, with determination. “I think I need to go back in the sea. This doesn’t seem like hell enough. Not makin’ the mistake…Dr Mitch’ll’ll never let me live it down. Doin’ it prop’ly…” He turned around, tripped on the edge of the jetty and measured his length on the wooden planking.

_It smells of fish. It’s a clue. Clues are good. But hard on the face._

He somehow got his feet under him and set off down the jetty towards the water, off-balance but making headway. He didn’t need a boat. He could swim and he could swim until he couldn’t swim and then when he couldn’t swim, he’d drown again and there’d be no demon or ferryman or anything. Just quiet.

He had a strong feeling that he was being followed. His instincts were honed by decades in the field.

_Don’ sneak up on **me!**_

He swung round and nearly went right off the jetty, the side away from the boats, but that same man caught his arm and pulled him back on balance.

“Stop!” the man hissed. “You can’t do this!”

“Watch me!” Peter exclaimed, struggling to get free. “You’re a horrid demon and I don’t need you any more. Never did! Go away!”

“Look, if I was a demon, and you wanted to go to hell, wouldn’t I be helping you? I’m wanting you to go back to living with your sweet wife!”

Peter felt his brain wasn’t up to these difficult conundrums. Then he realised, he’d learnt from the best! “Oh, no, you don’t! If you wanted me to go to hell, then you’d pretend to try and get me to not go to hell, so I’d go, because you’re _**wicked!”** _

The man paused. “That’s in point of fact the first sensible thing you’ve said tonight. A demon would know exactly how exceedingly pig-headed you are!”

“Hah! Caught you out! Now **_go away!”_** Peter shouted.

_**“Shh!”** _

“Shh yourself. I wouldn’t be yelling if you were here! I mean…I mean…You wouldn’t be yelling if…go away!”

“I can’t leave you to do something stupid, which might not even be intentional when you’re this drunk! Come on! You’re going to spoil everything!”

“Go a-away! Leave me alone! I’m trained! I’m a special age..net…special – age …um - I can **_hit_ ** you!” He shook off the man’s hand.

“Not sure you actually can!”

“You’re laughing at me? Like El’s father?” Peter stood a little taller and did, indeed, take a hefty, powerful, well-judged, technically sound swing in the blond man’s direction. But demons could move really, really fast, because the punch didn’t connect and put him so off-balance that he had one foot swinging over the water until the demon pulled him back.

The demon said, sighing, “Too noisy and too stupid and too stubborn and too damned drunk! Sorry, Peter, more smiting!” and hit him very hard.

“Not Neal, f’sure,” he mumbled as everything went black. He was sorry it wasn’t Neal. Being dead with Neal wouldn’t be all bad, even in hell.

 

Peter woke up in the cold, cold rain, in the dark. _Damn, back in New York! Didn’t I drown? In Belize? Was it all a dream? No. I drowned. Now I’m back in the New York rain._ He sighed gustily and then sat there, thinking deep and philosophical thoughts. How appropriate if suicides got to spend eternity in the exact situation they suicided from! It was very tidy and neat. He liked that. Orderly. Like accounts. All the numbers on _this side_ added up to all the numbers on _that side_ , then you knew you got it right. Simple. Orderly.

He heard someone crying. _Well, this is hell. No surprise._ ‘Wailing and gnashing of teeth!’ He felt proud that he’d remembered that from his religious training in childhood. Wouldn’t get him out of hell. Wouldn’t even get him into purgatory. But nice that he remembered it.

He glanced over and could see, through an open door, a man kissing his wife in the soft light of the moon flooding in the open window.

“Hey!” he said. The man continued to kiss his wife and now he could see that it was that damned blond demon with the black eyes, kissing his wife. And more hellish, El was kissing back! Peter pushed away from the cold, wet, hard, uncomfortable surface.

“Hey!” he tried a little louder, spitting out rain water. The two broke apart, smiling broadly. Making fun of the poor sap. The poor, newly-dead sap. Two demons…demons were mean. His priest had said, when he was small, that angels and demons could look like anybody. It had bothered him for a long time, back when he was eight, peering at every auntie, uncle and cousin. Teachers really worried him. Probably started him off investigating crime. Now he saw it was true. El would never kiss a demon!

“Here, drink this!” the fair male demon said, suddenly next to him and crouching down. He handed him a mug of something that smelled like coffee, turning the rain off with a wave of his hand somewhere above Peter’s head. _There you are! Normal people don’t do that!_

_Don’t drink or eat anything in fairyland! You’ll be stuck there forever!_

“How are you feeling, Hon?” El said, kneeling by his side and steadying the mug, while the demon that reminded him of Neal backed off into the shadows again.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” El said to him, the demon.

“I should go.”

“If you go now, I shall scream and scream and yell and go to the press and write a book and have it made into a film!” El said, standing up and shaking her fist at the demon.

_You go girl!_

There was a chuckle. “Who gets to play me? In the movie?”

“Someone really stupid and ugly and mean!”

“So no realism at all?”

“Peter will be someone gorgeous… Richard Gere when he was younger! Or George Clooney.”

“No realism at all.”

“I’ll let you choose, if you stay, who plays you.”

Silence. Then, “A male version of Charlize Thieron?”

“You can’t have that!”

“You made Gere younger. I can make her male. She’s gorgeous, sexy, smart and strong and I think a male version of her would be just about right to play me. She can really wear good clothes, too. Did you see her in Aeon Flux? Couldn’t take my eyes off her! Good at breaking and entering, too…and she cracked safes in the Italian Job, very skilled!”

“Since you want realism, all right.” The shadowy figure emerged from the dark.

Peter looked again. In this amount of light, he really reminded him of Neal. But Neal was dead. And El wasn’t. And Neal was dark-haired and light-eyes and this man was light-haired and dark-eyed.

“Can you help me with him?” El asked.

“I have done much more than I should have! Do you realise - ”

“What was he doing out in a boat at this time of night?” El asked him, as the demon came closer and she turned her back to pick up something. Peter opened his mouth to tell her that’s how he died, and the demon put his hand over his mouth and said, “He was fishing.”

Demons lie. But this didn’t feel like demon. It felt like a man.

_Warm, but not toasty_.

It didn’t smell like brimstone. It smelled like Neal’s aftershave. He had always wondered how Neal had afforded that aftershave on nothing a month, since all his money went on rent. _Silly! If he can forge whiskey, brandy, wine, he can forge aftershave! Or steal it…hmm….the Great Aftershave Heist! The Great Cologne Robbery! The Great Men’s Perfume Forgery of 2009! My collar! I have him in custody…he’s in hell. Not going anywhere. Still wearing the proceeds of …_

“Fishing!” El said, coming back into the room with a robe.

Neal-demon removed his hand. “You should give him lots of Vitamin B's, if you have, and lots of water. Probably had a beer or two with one of those hail-fellow-well-met idiot tourists and got a little tipsy and decided to surprise you with breakfast.”

“Uh-huh?” El said, at her most disbelieving. “In your estimation he’s a ‘little tipsy’? And you just happened to be right there to see him fall in the water out of the boat in the middle of the Caribbean? After us not seeing you for years, believing you were dead? And the boats are all kept locked after dark. You know, those marks you found must have been as dumb as stumps!”

“Hey!” Neal objected. “I conned a lot of great men! Including your husband rather often, though I agree the description doesn’t seem to apply at this present moment! And I keep telling everyone, there ain’t a lock I can’t pick!”

Neal and El between them hauled Peter to his feet – which felt weird in wet socks on the shower floor, he stamped a bit – and, while continuing the argument and ignoring him almost completely, removed all his clinging, sodden clothing and dried him off a little and wrapped him in a robe. Peter blinked back and forth between them, bewildered.

“How did you get us here, anyway! You just wanted to see us, but it had to be far away from New York?”

“Well, yeah. Me and him together, even looking like this, too easy. I went in as the representative of the car company her husband had bought a raffle ticket from to tell her that she had won an all-expenses vacation for two to Belize…and she was so disappointed when she realised he couldn’t go as he was waiting for his Greencard still.”

“How do you know that? Never mind! Never mind!”

“That’s what I do, El!

..........“So I suggested that she didn’t tell her husband, as he’d be disappointed, too, and feel silly for buying the ticket, but that the tickets could still be of use to her if she gave them to her boss and made him like her, that’s what one of our other winners had done and got a great promotion!”

“You conned her into getting a great vacation prize and then giving it up?”

“It was the plan! Not to be too obvious!

........“She was new enough at his office to be unaware that he and his buddies all tell their wives they go fishing this time every year, drink a lot and play poker almost all day and all night.”

“He doesn’t! Does he? How do you – forget it! Forget it!” “

"She didn’t suspect a thing and your father didn’t suspect a thing, and you didn’t suspect a thing! Deviousness accomplished! Piece of cake!”

“You’re a horrible criminal! I suppose he didn’t buy the ticket at all!”

“No, of course not! No raffle! **_Con!_ ** Concentrate, El!

.......“You haven’t enjoyed it?”

“It’s beautiful…the food is great! Yes – yes, it’s been magical! Heavenly!”

_Good. El liked it. Worth it, then. Heavenly. Even if I ended up in hell_.

“I’ll tell my friend. He invested in it. He’ll be pleased.”

“Which friend?”

“No-one you knew.”

“Oh.” El picked up the coffee and handed it to him again. “Peter Burke, drink the damn coffee!” He drank the coffee. It was very, very strong, bitter and very black and a lot less than hot. _Make a note: Hell’s damned coffee is much like the Bureau’s, and demons make you drink it. Might not have come if I’d known…tell the others! How do I tell the others…?_

“Where did you come from?” El was asking the man who reminded him of Neal. They took an arm each and walked him to his side of the bed. They pulled back the covers and tipped him in. He landed mostly face-first, and wrestled to get round so he could watch them argue. Hell had some beautiful demons, even in the dark. Mostly dark. _Guess they lure people in._

“Heaven. A stork brought me.”

“If you don’t – okay. I guess you don’t have to tell me anything.”

“Nope.”

“But you can sure tell me why you let us all think you were dead all this time!”

“Don’t have to.”

“He does sound like Neal,” Peter muttered. “Five, defiant and obnoxious. Why are all the lights off?”

“Do you realise what you did to him? To us?”

“I didn’t actually do anything. I was kidnapped.

..........“And so no-one sees me. Bad enough you yelling out there on the jetty!”

“Oh, you look kidnapped!” El snarked.

“With the help of some friends, I escaped. By that time, it seemed the best idea to keep me dead. You’d all come to terms with it, it was the only way I could truly keep my freedom.”

“You horrible selfish bastard!” El said, suddenly, tears in her voice. “You don’t know what you did to us all!”

“I didn’t, actually. If I’d let anyone know, my freedom was at stake. Remember, we had pretty well given up our friendship. You were going to DC, both of you. I’m risking waa-aay too much right now!”

“You can’t kiss the…being…. and then snarl at him, Hon,” Peter said, trying to sit up, but they were both sitting on opposite sides of the covers, now, and it wasn’t easy.

“Yes, I can! Both perfectly reasonable responses.”

“And you can’t blame him for being dead. I tried it. I don’t think I did a very good job of it, but I tried, for you, El!”

Neal-demon groaned.

El said, “What?”

“He’s drunk, El, he doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

“Peter, what do you mean, you tried to be dead for me?”

“ ** _Is_** he Neal?” Peter asked, feeling that he’d said something that El didn’t like and it was perhaps best to divert her attention.

“Yes, but - ”

“But,” Peter managed to wriggle up into a sitting position, losing his robe in the process, and put out a hand to touch Neal’s hair. It was hair all right, not a hat or something. “But his hair. I had some beers but his hair was dark, I swear. Wasn’t it? Wait! I have pictures. **_Evidence._ ** ”

He started to get out of bed. “No clothes, Peter. Stay in bed.”

“Oh, Neal. Thank you, hadn’t noticed. Right. Stay in bed.

“But your hair and worse, your eyes…you used to have lovely blue eyes!”

“You really are horribly drunk, aren’t you?” Neal stated.

“Lil’bit.”

“Even after the cold shower and the coffee…”

“Not as drunk as when I thought you were a demon someone on the Styx. Sharon, did you say your name was?”

“Don’t call me Sharon!

........“Gosh, Peter, drunk, drunk, drunk! Shut up, go to sleep. El and I are having an argument.”

“I can play, too! After all, she’s my wife.”

“You need to sleep.”

“I can integrorate…interro… I can ask questions. I’m good at finding out stuff. If you’re Neal, what did you give Rebecca that she thought was the diamond?”

“Peter, a demon would know that, it doesn’t prove anything!” Neal frowned exasperatedly.

“ ** _Did_** he try to drown himself?”

“He was drunk and fell in the sea,” Neal told her. “I saw it and fished him out.”

Peter pointed at her. Then at Neal. “Not a complete lie. Not all the truth. Smart. It’s probably Neal. And Neal, it was a piece of brick.”

“I know that, Peter!”

“So it ** _is_** you. Good! So why - ”

“I am in disguise,” Neal said, with dangerous patience. “Bleach and contacts. I’m always solving your cases, special age-net man.”

“You were going to leave me all alone?” El asked to Peter. “And where are your shoes? Those were new!”

“No, no, no, no.…! Yes. Well, not all. You have your dob and your jog… your jog and your dob … ** _dog and job!_** ….and your father and mother and your friends.

..........“In the boat.”

El punched Peter’s shoulder and Neal’s shoulder and said, “You’re both selfish bastards!”

“I don’t see I’m a selfish bastard when I risked my identity and my freedom to save your stupid husband who can’t keep his big mouth shut! Look, I hurt my hand, I stupidly hit his **_head_**. No sympathy from you! And he’s heavy, especially when wet! I could have wrenched something! And they’re not in the boat, they’re somewhere around the jetty, or in the sea. He kicked them off like a two-year-old! He’s still drunk!”

“Would he had been successful?” El asked in a small voice.

“Yes. It wasn’t a bad plan. Simple and effective. You’d have got the triple-accidental-death insurance.”

“In that case, drag him back and throw him in!” El said, angrily.

“Hey!” Peter said.

“Okay,” Neal said, “come on, Peter.”

“No! I haven’t any clothes on. And I’m not sure I want to be dead any more. I never spoke to Hughes, for one thing. And strange men kiss my wife.”

“They always take your clothes off, anyway, before they do the autopsy,” Neal said, comfortingly. “Save them some time…and being dead isn’t at all bad, let me tell you.”

“I know. You were the strange man kissing my wife.”

“I was so glad he wasn’t dead, Hon!”

“But now I’m not dead, and you aren’t kissing me!”

Elizabeth climbed on the bed and wrapped her arms around him and kissed him, coming up for air to say, “You stink of Belizean beer!”

Neal stood and watched them with satisfaction for a while, then said, “I think that’s my cue to leave!”

Peter’s hand whipped out and snagged his wrist. He wasn’t a demon any more and couldn’t move all that fast.

**_“Gotcha!”_** he said, and they both laughed. “You aren’t going anywhere! I have missed you so much! Come here! I’m so glad we’re both alive! All three of us are alive! We **_love_ ** you! I never said it before. I never realised before. We _**love**_ you!”

Neal grinned, looking suddenly exactly the same despite the hair and the eyes. He climbed onto the bed, too, and Peter and Elizabeth pulled him into a three-way bear-hug.

 

 

 

The End

Comments and criticisms very, very welcome!


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